"Leave me--leave me!" she cried. "I must not now. Poor wanderer! art thou gone?" With an expression of the deepest bitterness and disappointment, she continued, "Why, oh, why didst thou take back thy pledge? Nay, it is here still; but--alas! 'tis broken. Broken!" and a scream so wild and pitiful escaped her, it was like the last agony of the spirit when riven from its shrine. Her hair wet with the drizzly atmosphere hung about her face. She suddenly threw it aside, as if listening. "'Tis he! Again he comes. My--no, no; he _was_ my lover! I have none now. I have a husband; but--he is unkind. Alas! why am I thus? I feel it! O merciful Heaven! my brain leaps; but I am not--indeed I am not mad!" Saying this, she bounded down the cliff into the path she had left, with surprising swiftness. Returning, she was met by her husband, with two servants, who were in search. He chid her harshly--brutally. He threatened--ay, he threatened restraint. She heard this; but he saw not the deep and inflexible purpose she had formed. Horror at the apprehension of confinement, which, in calmer intervals, she dreaded worse than death, prompted her to use every artifice to aid her escape. She was now calm and obedient, murmuring not at the temporary attendance to which she was subjected. She sought not the cliff and the deep chasm; but would sit for hours upon the shore, looking over the calm sea, with a look as calm and as deceitful. Vigilance became relaxed; apprehension was lulled; she was again left to herself, and again she stole towards the cliff. Like to some guilty thing, she crept onward, often looking back lest she should be observed. Having attired herself with more than ordinary care, before leaving her chamber she unlocked an ivory casket with great caution, taking thence a ring, which she carefully disposed on her forefinger. She looked with so intense a gaze upon this pledge--for it was the pledge of Mortimer--that she seemed to be watching its capricious glance, like the eye of destiny, as if her fate were revealed in its beautiful and mystic light. Sunset was near as she approached the cliff. She paused where the chasm opened out its deep vista upon the waters. They were now sparkling in the crimson flush from a sky more than usually brilliant. Both sky and ocean were blent in one; the purple beam ran out so pure along the waves, that every billow might now be seen, every path and furrow of the deep. Adeline climbed over the rail. She stood on that extreme verge, so fearful and abrupt that it might have rendered dizzy a stouter head than her own. "This night are we married, Mortimer. The _ring_ and the _cliff_!" The ring at this moment shot forth a tremulous brightness; probably from participation with the glowing hues by which it was surrounded. "The genii of that ring--said he not so?--they will bear me to him. Our couch is decked, and the bridal hymn----Hark!"